Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor
Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor is a demo tape compiled in July 1970 by the group who would later become known as The Residents. Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor is among the group's earliest surviving demo recordings, originating from the same sessions as their next demo, The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger. It is known that The Residents "really don't like" the tape and thus have never released any tracks from it. A low-quality bootleg copy began circulating among fans in 2015. History Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor was compiled in July 1970 by a loose collective of like-minded eccentrics now going by the name The Delta Nudes, from hours of recordings made with multi-instrumentalist Roland Sheehan, who had appeared at their San Mateo apartment in June with a U-haul trailer full of musical instruments. The tape's title originated when Sheehan looked out the window of the second-floor apartment and saw "this old, dark green '52 or '53 model Chevrolet pickup... the bed of the pickup was packed full, over and above the height of the cab, with nothing but rusty coathangers." The song "Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor" was spontaneously composed and recorded shortly thereafter, followed by a song referred to by Sheehan as "When Roy Stuffed Trigger". In co-writing these two songs, the skilled guitarist Sheehan followed the group's instructions to avoid using his musical knowledge. Rusty Coathangers also includes abortive early examples of the group performing "Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones (here crossed with "When Johnny Comes Marching" - both are also heard on Stuffed Trigger) as well as traditional music ("Bringing In The Sheaves"), early tape collage experiments, and "Bo Diddley", another notable but obscure early Delta Nudes original. Sheehan left the group at the end of the summer, at which point the group began editing their many reels of tape into curated demo tapes, Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger. These two tapes were likely intended to be sent by the group to their friends although only one of the group's associates, former disc jockey William Reinhardt, has confirmed receiving copies of all four of the group's early demo tapes as a gift after making the group's acquaintance in 1974."I played the RR tape copies of Baby Sex and WB on my KBOO show, yes. Those and others Hardy gave me as gifts for airing, along with promotion of MTR in the first year we were friends, 1973-74." - William Reinhardt, The Residents Facebook group, August 2nd 2018"Damn, I had the original R-R tape, a special gift from Hardy for airplay on my KBOO radio show. Well, years later in '89 I was desperate for cash and sold it. Our close relationship was fractured when they found out! I never recovered the trust we once shared after that regretful mistake!" - William Reinhardt, The Residents Facebook group, April 4th 2019 Contents , ca. 1971]] As Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor is a rough demo tape which was never intended for wide release, it has no known cover art or definitive tracklisting, and many of the short improvisational pieces on the tape likely were never given actual titles. It appears to date from approximately the same time as The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger to the extent that the two are often interchangeably listed in terms of chronological release in various histories of The Residents. Guitarist Roland Sheehan confirmed many years later that the song "Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor" was recorded shortly prior to the song "The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger".Jim Knipfel, "Somethin' Devilish: The Untold (And Finally True) Pre-History of The Residents, 1963-1971" Track listing A rough approximation of a Rusty Coathangers tracklisting, based on descriptive titles and recognizable cover versions, would look like this: *Improvisation #1 (Guitar Solo) *"Bye Bye Birdie" Edit Piece **''features "One Boy" and "Kids"'' *Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor *Improvisation #2 *Improvisation #3 / High Speed Tape Piece *Bringing In The Sheaves (traditional) *Improvisation #4 **''interpolates Satisfaction (Jagger/Richards) and When Johnny Comes Marching (traditional) '' * Let It Be (Lennon/McCartney) * Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor #2 *Bo Diddley *Yesterday (Lennon/McCartney) Availability , circa 1970]] Early reports For many years, the existence of Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger were known to the general public solely through a mention in Matt Groening's 1979 article "The True Story of The Residents", as well as occasional references in mid-to-late 1970s promotional materials distributed by Ralph Records. Unlike the other three known demo reels from this period (Stuffed Trigger, ''The W***** B*** Album'' and [[Baby Sex|''B.S.]]), none of the tracks from ''Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor have been released on any of the later compilations of the group's early material. Former UWEB fan club president Uncle Willie said that his personal research in the band's archives in the early 1990s turned up only "a few pieces" of Rusty Coathangers and "a suite" entitled The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger.''Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide To The Residents'' Bootlegs An unidentified Residents fan is known to have purchased copies of the two tapes (as well as The W***** B*** Album and B.S.) from the group's friend William Reinhardt in 1989. Reinhardt was suffering financial problems at the time and sold the tapes reluctantly; this betrayal of confidence would nevertheless permanently strain Reinhardt's relationship with The Residents from that point onwards. The first artifacts from Rusty Coathangers and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger to leak to the public were a number of short snippets of tracks which were leaked to the Internet by a fan in the late 2000s. These snippets are of a notably higher sound quality than the copies of the two tapes which have circulated since and feature some alternate edits, although complete copies of this version continue to elude fans. Both tapes later leaked in presumably more complete versions in 2015, as part of a series of bootleg CD-Rs. A number of copies of Rusty Coathangers which circulate on the Internet feature a version of its first half which is noticeably lower in quality than its second. These copies originated from a YouTube video posted in August 2015, featuring a camera recording of the first half of the tape as it is played from a Bluetooth speaker. Statement from The Cryptic Corporation In response to the spread of the group's early recordings in 2015, then-President of The Cryptic Corporation, Hardy Fox, released the following statement: I certainly understand that the reality is that people are going to be curious about this material and the fact that The Residents don't wish them to be listening to it does not exert the slightest to pressure to not do it. But our perspective is to support the group and not encourage people to want to hear these mediocre recordings. I think the only thing that can be done is to make certain it is understood that The Residents regard these as personal recordings and consider people listening to them akin to peeping through the window while they masturbate. A vision that will no doubt drive some people forward as much as it might discourage others. People do need to be careful that they don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. There is little to nothing to be gained by irritating the group, and already there are considerably more interesting recordings that have not been released to serious fans because they know that unscrupulous people will just post them all over the place. In time, it could kill the group's interest in releasing obscure recordings entirely. But so it goes. The dam is broken, long live the new dam. ''Hardy Fox'' Crypticorp Official releases In 2016, an excerpt of the title track was heard in the documentary film ''Theory of Obscurity'', but other than this short snippet, the Rusty Coathangers ''tape has only been heard in an extremely low-quality bootleg copy (although slightly higher quality copies of unknown provenance have been rumored to circulate among fans). In early 2019, a representative of Cherry Red Records revealed that ''Rusty Coathangers was under active consideration for inclusion in the then-upcoming pREServed compilation A Nickle If Your Dick's This Big,"For what it's worth, I gather RCFTD is under consideration, although considered not very Residential at all. Ballad even less so..." - Richard, The Residents Facebook group, March 27th 2019 but when it was released in November 2019 there were no excerpts included. It was revealed the following year that the group had compiled a 22-minute "concentrate" edit of Rusty Coathangers the previous year for the release, but it had "freaked them out", refusing any further requests to release the pre-''Warner Bros. Album'' demos as they do not consider them to be "Residential"."Rusty and Trigger are the two recordings they really don't like, or consider Residential. There was a 22 minute 'concentrate' of Rusty they edited together a year or so ago, but I think it freaked them out! I think it's the only thing I've suggested or asked of them that they've said "No" to." - Richard, The Residents Facebook group, January 15th 2020 See also * The Delta Nudes * The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger * The Warner Bros. Album * ERA B474 * The Delta Nudes' Greatest Hiss External links and references * "Before the Beginning" on RZWeb * A Nickle If Your Dick's This Bigat Discogs Category:The Delta Nudes Category:Demo tapes Category:Unreleased